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Digital Rights Management does suffer from a bunch of implementation problems that make end user experiences bad - this is bad. have a robust implementation that works well and is well reviewed would be a good thing for this, yes?

HDCP is all about increasing the difficulty of pirating just enough to stop the vast majority from doing it.

hdcp 2.2 is a serous pain in the ass for those setting up their home systems it can be in fact way more stable to used a hdcp 2.2 to 1.4 step down box so that your projector and the like in home Cinemas work dependably. Why have they made hdcp 2.2 delay sensitive is because some capture devices introduced some lag and some projectors have the same lag issue why they have the same chip-set inside.

Content protected by hdcp 2.2 have been turning up on the internet illegally copied and decoded. So those without genuine licenses to the content don't have to put up with the hdcp issues at all.

It about time those saying hdcp is about stopping illegal coping step out into the world and wake up HDCP 2.2 is a dog. If you digital rights management solution effects you end users badly like sync failures has hdcp 2.2 suffers from so making people put in splitters and the like to cure sync failures that result in downgrading what was the point.

Everything hdcp up to 2.2 should be classed as a absolute failure in content protection as it made genuine users live hard and basically does nothing to the illegal copy producers. The only practical usage for hdcp up to 2.2 is to prevent radio sniffing and capturing the screen output that way.

Direct cable connection capturing of HDCP 2.2 by down-converter was acquirable before the first HDCP 2.2 supporting screen turned up this is how far goofed it is so illegal copy produces had very early access to HDCP 2.2 with very little investment..

Of course those pushing hdcp don't want to admit hdcp has been goofed it up this badly and the only thing is ever worked for. HDCP 2.x series has been broken before consumers have got the hardware to support it.

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HDCP is all about increasing the difficulty of pirating just enough to stop the vast majority from doing it.

I've never seen "vast majority" trying to pirate uncompressed HDMI stream, to begin with. Merely capturing such bitstream implies some challenge due to high speed and bizarre amount of data. But those who really want to pirate it this way could buy some hdmi capture devices. Ironically some of these support HDCP, it gives me a good laugh

So it sounds like a really lame excuse to me. What I've told about being goofied by DRM nuts? Lame excuses are hallmark of DRM pests.

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I'm fine with it. As long as it is mutual wish of patricipants. Say, it makes no sense to encrypt public chats. E.g. if you would encrypt this conversation, so only chosen few could read it and everyone else could see some garbage, it would be pointless and incomplete, isn't it?

That's where DRM fails miserably. Most of time it does not asks for user consent or something like that, DRM mfrs and hollyweb just do not give a fuck. It either hides in the shadows or pwnzors the user. If chat encryption would behave like this I would hate it, obviously. Fortunately, devs of IM programs appear to be far more reasonable when it comes to encryption and are using it for something good and reasonable instead. You see, you could use hammer to build houses. You could use same hammer to smash heads as well. So does it means hammer itself is evil? Nope. But certain use of certain tool IS evil. DRM is all about smashing heads. It never does anything useful for users. At very best it stays hidden and only wastes resources on useless encryption, which isn't big challenge for pirates anyway. Just look at TPB, lol. At worst DRM screws up users, while most of time DRM faggots fail to communicate properly all their weird terms and restrictions, basically goofying users all around. Goofying and treachery does not looks like mutual consent or something like that. Furthermore I could see plenty of unhappy voices, that reinforces idea it isn't mutual consent or something like that. And speaking for myself I would never be happy with such use of encryption on my machine. So no way one could get mine consent this way. So I would consider anyone trying to put code like this on my machine exceptionally evil.

another well though out answer - nice!

Digital Rights Management does suffer from a bunch of implementation problems that make end user experiences bad - this is bad. have a robust implementation that works well and is well reviewed would be a good thing for this, yes?

HDCP is all about increasing the difficulty of pirating just enough to stop the vast majority from doing it.

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This raises an interesting point. The distribution of DRM'ed media to an audience of even a few thousand is equivalent to setting up an encrypted chat loop with thousands of users, which no serious user of encrypted chat would ever trust. Let's assume Signal is better secured than any form of DRM, and cannot be cracked at all. You have a prerelease version of your brand new movie, and you send it out to every movie reviewer you know over Signal (assuming it can handle the filesize for this discussion). If just ONE of these movie reviewers has his phone stolen from his hotel room, the movie goes to Bitorrent. Same if one of the reviewers is bribed, or has a beef with you. The only possible defense is a different watermark in every copy, so you know where the torrent came from.

On the other hand, some coding designed for DRM can (EDIT: theoretically) be repurposed to impede malware from doing things you don't want, notably screenshotting those same encrypted chats. Signal by default disables screenshots while running, not because this prevents someone from turning that off, but because it prevents malware (maybe from the rival movie studio down the block?) from copying your chats without first countering the anti-screenshot software. I don't know how Signal does this, but whatever path Android uses to slow down screenshotting of DRM content would be a prewritten, ready-to-use method of blocking screenshots by malware unless some limitation on what keys can be used denies usage of it by software other than DRM.

This is a nicely thought out post!

it is true though that DRM is not the be all and end all. It is just one of the hurdles that need to be jumped through to pirate content.

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This raises an interesting point. The distribution of DRM'ed media to an audience of even a few thousand is equivalent to setting up an encrypted chat loop with thousands of users, which no serious user of encrypted chat would ever trust. Let's assume Signal is better secured than any form of DRM, and cannot be cracked at all. You have a prerelease version of your brand new movie, and you send it out to every movie reviewer you know over Signal (assuming it can handle the filesize for this discussion). If just ONE of these movie reviewers has his phone stolen from his hotel room, the movie goes to Bitorrent. Same if one of the reviewers is bribed, or has a beef with you. The only possible defense is a different watermark in every copy, so you know where the torrent came from.

On the other hand, some coding designed for DRM can (EDIT: theoretically) be repurposed to impede malware from doing things you don't want, notably screenshotting those same encrypted chats. Signal by default disables screenshots while running, not because this prevents someone from turning that off, but because it prevents malware (maybe from the rival movie studio down the block?) from copying your chats without first countering the anti-screenshot software. I don't know how Signal does this, but whatever path Android uses to slow down screenshotting of DRM content would be a prewritten, ready-to-use method of blocking screenshots by malware unless some limitation on what keys can be used denies usage of it by software other than DRM.

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That's the same thing as saying "I bought a PlayStation game and I want to play it on Windows, so I have the right to break the DRM to do so".

No one here has ever given a compelling reason for why DRM is bad other than for childish reasons such "It doesn't allow me to do something that I am told not to do, so it's bad". There is no excuse for this when a Blu-ray player with all the necessary bits and pieces for encrypted playback can be bought brand new for less than 80USD.

And why Blue-ray player costs $80? Maybe because blue-ray is pretty much dead? Oh, wait, you can't kill dead. Blue ray was never alive in first place. Seems heavily DRMed "standard" where media is capable of bricking drive if code on media believes drive is "wrong" has failed to get reasonable traction. Inconvenient treacherous shit we call it. Sure, these fuckers who manufacture it have to dump prices, in futile attempts to cover costs spent on R&D and somesuch and squeeze at least something from it. Yet it implies blue-ray isn't exactly wanted on the market. Say, I do not even have blue-ray capable drives and I've never had chance to regret it. Not to mention I'm really not okay with the idea media could be able to intentionally brick my drive as part of "standard". It's not like if I need backdoored drive which would fail me when I need it most. So I'm not going to rely on backdoored tech, to begin with.

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I'm fine with it. As long as it is mutual wish of patricipants. Say, it makes no sense to encrypt public chats. E.g. if you would encrypt this conversation, so only chosen few could read it and everyone else could see some garbage, it would be pointless and incomplete, isn't it?

That's where DRM fails miserably. Most of time it does not asks for user consent or something like that, DRM mfrs and hollyweb just do not give a fuck. It either hides in the shadows or pwnzors the user. If chat encryption would behave like this I would hate it, obviously. Fortunately, devs of IM programs appear to be far more reasonable when it comes to encryption and are using it for something good and reasonable instead. You see, you could use hammer to build houses. You could use same hammer to smash heads as well. So does it means hammer itself is evil? Nope. But certain use of certain tool IS evil. DRM is all about smashing heads. It never does anything useful for users. At very best it stays hidden and only wastes resources on useless encryption, which isn't big challenge for pirates anyway. Just look at TPB, lol. At worst DRM screws up users, while most of time DRM faggots fail to communicate properly all their weird terms and restrictions, basically goofying users all around. Goofying and treachery does not looks like mutual consent or something like that. Furthermore I could see plenty of unhappy voices, that reinforces idea it isn't mutual consent or something like that. And speaking for myself I would never be happy with such use of encryption on my machine. So no way one could get mine consent this way. So I would consider anyone trying to put code like this on my machine exceptionally evil.

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That's the same thing as saying "I bought a PlayStation game and I want to play it on Windows, so I have the right to break the DRM to do so".

Just imagine what would happen. Or even worse. Think about someone trying to run Windows software on Linux. Those evil Communist nazis trying to not use the only true operating system.

Seriously. When I run a game I bought on Linux with wine, nobody looses[1]. When copy protection keeps me from doing that, everyone loses. When illegal copies are prevented even for only two weeks, the publisher wins[2]. The few Linux users won't make that huge a difference to him. So he uses DRM to protect his stuff. Some companies even removed their DRM on games, after the game was cracked on the internet. IMO that's a very fair strategy.

Back to movies: When I buy a disc and watch it by using unlicensed software stripping the DRM and watching it on my old non-HDCP capable display, nobody looses[1]. But if copying is easier then buying stuff, more people will uses copies. So the Publishers have to make buying easy and copying hard. HDCP doesn't and never really did prevent copies, but prevented customers who paid for Blurays to enjoy the content. The customer has 4 options. 1) Buy new compatible hardware, 2) don't buy Blurays (everyone looses), 3) Buy and Crack Bluray (everyone wins), 4) Pirate movies.

I can understand the reason why they forced HDCP on everyone. But as soon as it was clear that its a lost battle, they should have stopped enforcing it. Try it again with 4k sure, but then drop it even faster. Capturing via HDMI still needs a lot of effort, because the datarates are so high. HDCP on the other hand is the easiest problem to solve.

Note: The argument is mostly about HDCP. I do understand why they try to protect their stuff, just HDCP isn't working anyways. AACS is preventing more people from ripping then HDCP, even though cracking AACS gives you the untouched stream instead of raw frames.

[1] Technically Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers loose, because I have less incentive to buy new/their stuff.
[2] Its hard to get solid proof for this. But since it's the publishers right to use DRM, its enough if they believe it.

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Furthermore, I would insist it is those who are pushing laws like this are real criminals. And, honestly, Google definitely got enough resources to push and lobby whatever they want. All it takes is a wish. Unfortunately it seems Google just decided to be evil. Seems there should be "worst Linux commit ever" award, yay.